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Introducing the new CEDA forums

Thu, 2009-10-15 14:44 - stables

Greetings,

I am happy to announce that thanks to the labors of Jeff Jarman, we have rebuilt and resigned an important aspect of the CEDA website, the forums section. These have been modeled after the successful approach at Crossx.com and they offer us an opportunity to provide an organized way for our community to communicate. Forums are available for tournaments, regional issues, questions of community practice, organizational questions and a lot more.

The forums are now active and open for anyone to sign up at http://cedadebate.org/forum/. Registering is free and simple. This is an organizationally sponsored opportunity for us to communicate as a community. For too long, we have been willing to freeride on the labors (and technology) of others, especially Phil Kerpin. Our free-riding has left us unable to organize the discussions or exercise concern when lines are crossed. The forum rules outside the emphasis on free speech and open conversation with the ability to moderate discussions.

I want to thank Phil for his years of hard work and service. His forum will continue to be an entirely unmoderated site. Our platform today offers a way to exchange the information that we need. Jeff and community volunteers will help keep the site functioning the best way possible. To that end, if you have suggestions in how to organize forums to better serve your needs, please let us know.

For years the community resisted moving to a different platform because of the perceived difficulties of getting everyone to move with them. This prisoner's dilemma should end now. Thanks to the labors of Jon Bruschke, debateresults now sends direct emails with pairings and tournament information. Much of what we would 'miss' without a public listserv is now sent directly to coaches and students. The challenge is to build a place for the rest of the news and discussions. We think the CEDA forums are that place.

I am asking coaches, students, alumni and administrators to move your traffic about our community to the forums. I will be the first to take the plunge and announce that CEDA will begin using the forums for our organizational traffic, in addition to using its website emails and the CEDA-L.

Please let Jeff or I know if you have any trouble with the site. We have tried to learn from the success of other communities and we think this platform is long overdue. We just need your help in making this transition possible.